I would really like to have seen the No-Fly list. My older brother has been "randomly selected" for several flights in a row and I strongly suspect it is a name association with someone else. But our democratic republic uses "secret lists" now to persecute people. What can you do?

Hey, it gets better, there's been a push by certain democrats in washington you can probably name to expand the no-fly list (terror watch list) in both size and scope.

They want to be able to revoke constitutionally-guaranteed rights from people by putting their name on those lists.the lists that work so well, as you've discovered.and not a "oh, you're not the guy you thought we were", which is what your brother keeps getting -- they're talking about "oh, sorry, we think you might be this other guy who we think is a terrorist, so sorry, you can't purchase that firearm!"

No. You must be wrong. The Democrats stand for truth, justice, the American way, jobs and transparency. What you've described is those low down scum teatard fucking teeeee-bagger bible beating thugs who've ruined the entire nation in less than two years of interaction with the guberment. The Democrats have been fighting those guys and the neo-cons tooth and nail to restore your freedoms and tax the rich. It's just that they can't do it because of the nasty evil right who can wave a wand and stop any legislation even when the Democrats had a majority in the legislature and the whitehouse on their side.

So don't lie to us. It's not the democrats. It's those republifuckinteabaggers. They're the ones to blame for everything. The new boogeyman to keep your dumb asses in line and voting for the two party scam.

Before the Republican party allied itself with the bible-thumpers, the Republican party was considered the Liberal side while the Democrats were the conservatives. The democrats didn't change. The Republicans simply swung even further to the extreme than the Democrats... enough to make them look "liberal" by comparison. It wasn't always the way we see it today you know.

Yes and if you go far enough back liberal means modern-day libertarian. Conservative and liberal are labels that really only make sense in a time and place context. Which is why a little tiny part of me dies whenever people refer to parties with similar names 200 years ago in relation to modern politics.

Yes and if you go far enough back liberal means modern-day libertarian. Conservative and liberal are labels that really only make sense in a time and place context. Which is why a little tiny part of me dies whenever people refer to parties with similar names 200 years ago in relation to modern politics.

And the Progressive Party was an offshoot of the Republican Party created by Republican Teddy Roosevelt, an environmentalist and monopoly buster. "Libertarian", "Progressive", "Democrat", "Republican", etc all representing different beliefs depending upon the timeframe you look at.

Which brings me to the silliness of party loyalty. Even if beliefs aren't shifting in your lifetime party loyalty is counterproductive. If you are a party loyalist then your party can ignore you, they already have your vote. Meanwhile the other party can also ignore you because there is nothing they can do to receive your vote.

If you want your opinion to count you can not be loyal to a party. You must give every candidate a chance and make them earn your vote through their policy positions.

It is hard to call someone who wants to end the war on drugs and end the policy of imprisoning millions a "conservative." Your confusion seems to arise from the belief that anyone who represents a free-market point of view is a "conservative" (if that were the case, there would be practically no conservatives in America, since the major parties both strongly support various regulations on what businesses are permissible and both parties support government hand-outs to big businesses).

I think orthodoxies of any religion are unhealthy, inherently broken and that includes Communism, Capitalism, and any number of other socioeconomic/political belief systems. The inherent problem with orthodoxies is that the belief, the ideology becomes more important, than the goal the belief system serves. In the end the system cannibalizes its purpose in the name of the belief.

An operational belief system tests its own validity all along its process, and adjusts its beliefs and opinions as the nature of t

Whoa! The sale of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were Libertarian moves? Which alternative reality have you flown in from? Libertarians have about as much say in US government as the Communist party does - almost zero. That move was mostly a Republican thing, with consent given by Democrats.

You would do well to scroll up to BetterUnixthanUnix' post. Libertarians stand against much of what is going on in America, including that ridiculous "War on Drugs". But, it doesn''t matter what the libertarians want,

Here's a fun fact I recently learned: Thatcher privatised the UK water supply when she was in power and it's still privately owned now (first country to do so I believe) - except there's a rule that the water companies can't totally cut off people's water supply if they don't pay their bills, they can only install a flow restrictor. That rule didn't originally exist. The reason it was created was because there werea bunch of outbreaks of dysentry due to people being unable to afford clean running water. In

" poor Americans are getting health care that's the equivalent to what you'd get in Ethiopia or Somalia."
Exaggerate much or are you just clueless? The US system isn't perfect but if you have a heart attack or are in a car accident or just get the flu hospitals are required to treat you regardless of your ability to pay. The people in Ethiopia or Somalia are currently starving to death and I doubt the best medical care in the world can keep someone alive when they have no food to eat. It's to bad a "Freedom

PayPal founder Peter Thiel has put $1.25 million toward building floating, autonomous countries at sea, devoted to the implementation of libertarian policies.

There are two kinds of libertarians: idiots who actually think that removing government regulation would result in liberty rather than feudalism, and cynical assholes who take advantage of them. Based on PayPals reputation, which category do you think a PayPal founder most likely belongs to?

The word you are looking for is "Reactionary", which unfortunately doesn't fit in the reduced size post Reagan dictionary of doubleplusgood ebonics for all.

Funny thing is, I'm a *contemporary* liberal, and could also be considered a reactionary, as I believe in going back to a system where we had government oversight and standards to keep corporations in check, and heavy spending on education and infrastructure to improve the lives of Americans, specifically middle class and poor Americans.

The two words started out synonymous. The word libertarian was coined by Proudhon and he specifically stated that he coined the phrase as an alternate name for anarchism in his treatise because the French government of the time had banned "anarchist literature".

Outside of the US (the only place in the world where people in favor of capitalism call themselves libertarians - everywhere else socialist-libertarian is a tautology) the two terms are still incredibly close in meaning. Libertarians differ from anarchist in their proposed replacement of the nation-state structure not in their shared desire to get rid of it.Most libertarians embrace the idea of direct democracy, having every citizen vote on every single issue, combined with massive decentralization (to prevent a tyranny of the majority problem) - most anarchists favor the same.But while most anarchists favor political equality libertarians generally hold that economic equality is just as important and that, in fact, economic imbalance must always lead to power-imbalance.Then again communist-anarchist philosophy says the exact same thing (but with a radically different proposal on how to reach it - libertarians favor an open-market with mutualist worker-run businesses rather than top-down hierarchic businesses while anarcho-communists favor a money-less society without even inter-business competition).

The short version is - what Americans think they know about political philosophy is atrociously incomplete, ignorant and mostly just plain wrong and the rest of the planet tends to scorn the people you call libertarians for being, well not libertarian at all.Ironically - one of the great libertarians of our time is an American. But very few American's would call him that, least of all the people American's call libertarians. Rand Paul is NOT a libertarian (Rue Paul is actually more of one !) - but if you want to find a real libertarian, go look up Noam Chomsky.

Prior to a certain point in history, the word "liberal" was used to describe a platform of liberty. In other words, the exact opposite of today. At some point, the progressives co-opted the term so that they could sound more appealing to people that loved liberty. Much like how many nations that ruled by communist or military dictatorships have had "Democratic" or "Republic" in their names. Also, around the time of the founding of this nation, the word "Democrat" was a slur, used to indicate that a person pandered to the whims of the uninformed, emotional masses. Just putting that out there.

So, you can see how that worked out because people like you are running around saying how liberal the Republicans used to be. Yes, they were. They loved liberty. Some still do, but unfortunately, many have come along that like use fear of terrorism to increase the power of the federal government and thus reduce liberty. But that's not just a Republican issue, because the Democrats kept it going when they had the chance to change things.

And while I'm not really a religious person myself, I have to recognize that faith has been an important part of the lives of many, many, many people since the birth of this nation (and obviously long before that). The Republican party did not ally itself with the "bible-thumpers". The Republican party is the most logical place for them. Your words are tinged with disdain, and that's your prerogative, but try and understand history before you come off spouting about the "bible-thumpers" as if religious people have not been around since the beginning, and as if they don't deserve a place in modern society and a say in government.

The Republican party did not ally itself with the "bible-thumpers". The Republican party is the most logical place for them.

Seems reasonable enough. Who doesn't remember the touching scene in the Gospel of Mises(10:12-26) where Jesus selflessly defends the moneychangers in the temple from excessive capital gains taxes? Or the section shortly thereafter when he resists the blandishments of Judas, the liberal, and upholds intellectual property rights and avoids creating an underclass dependent on handouts by refusing the pirate the loaves and fishes?

All jest aside, the only way a 'bible-thumper' could endorse contemporary Republican(or, for that matter, contemporary Democratic) policy is by making sure not to read past the old testament, and, even there, some amount of studious ignoring will be required...

All jest aside, the only way a 'bible-thumper' could endorse contemporary Republican(or, for that matter, contemporary Democratic) policy is by making sure not to read past the old testament, and, even there, some amount of studious ignoring will be required...

The OT teaches that man is fallen, and basically sinful and evil. What about that teaching to you screams "We need a big, bureaucratic, monolithic government with tons of power resting with one person"? What did Samuel (actually, God, thru Samuel) warn of prior to instituting Saul as King? Wasnt it that kings would inevitably be selfserving?

The bible teaches nothing if not that there is only one righteous, perfect authority. Human experience and the last 100 years of history show very very clearly what

>Finally, the parable of the moneychangers is utterly irrelevant.It was NOT a parable, it was an EVENT. Parables are stories Jesus told to explain things by analogy. Things he actually DID do no qualify. How are we supposed to take your points on theology seriously if you don't even know THAT ?

Theres a difference between not knowing and mistyping at 1:30 in the morning. "incident" was what I was looking for.

. Beyond the tithes which were meant for charity what the bible says of property law sets a specific measurement of everybody's production aside to care for the needy - and that measurement is "as much as they need".

Israel was to be a holy nation in a way that no nation ever was; to try to base our governmental principles on Israel when we do NOT have a king who necessarily believes in and attempts to carry out God's will, doesnt work. We're not OT Israel, and trying to draw a parallel there doesnt work. And you will note a few things:

>Israel was to be a holy nation in a way that no nation ever was; to try to base our governmental principles on Israel when we do NOT have a king who necessarily believes in and attempts to carry out God's will, doesnt work. We're not OT Israel, and trying to draw a parallel there doesnt work.

That's a cop-out. Israel was by no means saintly or without it's share of greedy people who would abuse the system. More-over these rules clearly PREDATE the institution of the Israel monarchy so Israel's king is be

Something particularly noteworthy here is that Lazarus is the ONLY character in any of Jesus's parables to EVER be named, even the other characters in that SAME parable - the rich man and his brothers are nameless. Jesus deems Lazarus as a character archetype of a poor beggar to be so important he gives him alone a name, he gives the nameless beggar a name - and removes it from the rich and famous. I think the message is clear: for God it's

>Seems reasonable enough. Who doesn't remember the touching scene in the Gospel of Mises(10:12-26) where Jesus selflessly defends the moneychangers in the temple from excessive capital gains taxes? Or the section shortly thereafter when he resists the blandishments of Judas, the liberal, and upholds intellectual property rights and avoids creating an underclass dependent on handouts by refusing the pirate the loaves and fishes?

Not to mention when he defended the wealthy by saying that he'll be talking to

Prior to a certain point in history, the word "liberal" was used to describe a platform of liberty. In other words, the exact opposite of today. At some point, the progressives co-opted the term so that they could sound more appealing to people that loved liberty.

With due respect, I've been alive long enough to witness the very deliberate campaign to slander the term "liberal" and I happened to notice how, and more importantly why, it was done.

You do realize that some of the most ardent resistance to the abolition of slavery and the crusades for civil rights in the 60's came from Democrats, right? I'm not going to sit here and tell you that every Republican has been a shining beacon of light in the matters of human rights, but the characterization about the rights of brown people (I can't speak to the history of women's rights as much) is not only unfair, but it is historically inaccurate.

You do realize that some of the most ardent resistance to the abolition of slavery and the crusades for civil rights in the 60's came from Democrats, right?

I don't mean to sound contrary, but you are aware that, beginning with LBJ's support of the Civil Rights Act, there was an enormous political realignment in this country, and that the result was that the white supremacist faction of the Democratic Party deserted en masse and realigned with today's Republican Party?

So, let me get this straight: after the civil rights movement succeeded - in spite of the Democratic party - all the racists went and joined the other side? LBJ, there's a great man. He supported the Civil Rights Act because he felt it would "keep the n*****s voting Democrat for 200 years." Of course, it's not limited to politicians themselves. Hell, Jesse Jackson is a prominent Democrat and supposed "civil rights leader" who referred to New York as "Hymietown". I supposed that's OK because Jews aren't part of the permanent brown underclass that the Democrats have tried long and hard to create.

I think maybe your perception of Republicans and racism has been shaped by a media who is complicit in blurring the truth about politics in this country. I mean, I can see why you'd think Republicans are a bunch of racists. Remember when one of them pointed out happily that then-candidate Obama "speaks with no negro dialect?" Oh, right, that was Harry Reid, Senate Democrat Majority Leader. Can you imagine what would have happened if a prominent Republican had said that? When that happened, they trotted out every excuse in the book and then poof, it was gone.

I don't doubt your concern or your sincerity about racial issues, but you really need to get your facts straight and stop pointing to the boogieman on the right to lay blame for all that is wrong in America. I won't sit here and pretend that the Republican party is perfect. Far from it. That's why there is a tea party movement. And, of course, predictably, they're labeled as racists, zealots, morons, and all sorts other insults, when all they are is regular Americans that are tired of certain things. They only have a few chief complaints. They want smaller government, adherence to the Constitution, and fiscal responsibility. Meanwhile they're demonized by all the people who have something to lose if those things come to be. Even Republicans early on were distancing themselves because they stand to lose too; power, money, whatever. But they quickly realized that these are large numbers of people and that they will be heard. It's just like anything else. Whether right or wrong, the loudest opposition comes from the people that have the most to lose.

And it's easy to see what side the media falls on because their coverage is anything but fair. They're highly successful at rewriting history in the minds of people and they're certainly successful in steering the issues of the day whichever way they see fit. I'm not even referring to the "talking heads shows." Those are opinion, and that's fine. I'm talking about what is supposed to be journalistic coverage. It's filled with one-sided stories, loaded words and phrases, and the like. Objectivity is dead, if it ever really existed at all. The problem today is, everyone is plugged in to the spin, so it's much more effective.

It's a shame more people don't make that type of critical distinction on both sides.

As far as "big government", I think at the very least a fair portion of the Democratic party is made up of those who want "big government" only in cases where it's really necessary. For example, I strongly believe that a major reason Obama won in the primary over Hillary is that his policies (at least at the time) were much more nuanced and pragmatic than hers. It was a while ago, so specifics escape me, but I did a fair b

The Republicans were "Bible Thumpers" from their very creation. The biggest motivation in their anti-slavery crusades was religious. Until the Democrats starting turning against the churches in the 1960's, every major American political party... Federalists, Democratic-Republicans, Democrats, Whigs, Republicans... had a huge, heapin' helping of the Bible in their platforms. Even when parties opposed each other, they often used Biblical citations in their party planks. Both the conservative and progressive movements of the late 19th and early 20th century were largely motivated by religious concerns. The Temperence movement was religiously based. The progressive movement was religiously based.

"Bible Thumping" in politics is part and parcel of American history. It's been deeply intertwined in American politics since the nation came into being.

Well not exactly. More like after the great awakening it became deeply intertwined. I wouldn't describe many of the founding fathers as particularly religious. You have Thomas Jefferson who famously tried to rewrite the bible.

Many of the founding fathers associated the church and faith/superstition with the monarchy and oppression.

First off, Thomas Jefferson re-wrote the Bible to make it less miraculous - he famously removed such minor things as the resurrection, for goodness sakes. It's pretty much as non-religious as you can get after taking a razor to the pages of the Bible, unless you go so far as to cut out everything. Furthermore, pretty much all the historical evidence we have indicates that Thomas Jefferson was a deist, which was about as close as you could get to atheism back then while being intellectually honest; keep in mind that before Darwin came up with the theory of evolution, some form of Creationism was the best theory available for the origin of the species - and in order to have creationism, you must have a creator.

Secondly, Martin Luther didn't re-write the Bible, he translated it. There's a huge difference: although he might have incidentally made changes in order to translate it into German, his goal was to produce a German copy of the Bible that was essentially the same as the Latin version, except in a different language. That's not rewriting, that's translating - it's the same book, in a different language. Although what you said was trivially true (he did write it again, or re-write the book), the implication does not match your point at all. I will grant that he was very religious, though.

Thirdly, Joseph Smith didn't even touch the Bible, he just added a whole lot of gibberish on top - kinda like the New Testament (the Even Newer Testament?). Furthermore, pretty much all the historical evidence we have about the man points to him being a crook who snookered a bunch of people into his new religion, and did it primarily for the lifestyle it would offer him. He didn't write the Book of Mormon for religious purposes, he wrote it for the polygamy.

So that's one for three on "most religious", and one for three on "rewriting the Bible" - and unfortunately for your point, they're not the same ones.

So you probably won't read this because you posted "anonymous", but if you're encouraging someone to be "serious" please get your facts straight...

Joseph Smith never set foot in Utah, or anywhere within 1,000 miles of its modern borders. He was shot by a masked, "anonymous" lynch-mob in summer 1844; at that time he was serving as the democratically elected mayor of the city of Nauvoo, with about 10,000 residents in it; wagons didn't start rolling across the Mississippi River westward until about February

really..... REALLY.... You do realize pointing the blame just continues this worthless retarded fighting that has gotten us in this situation of the last 20 years. Open your fucking eyes for once and you'll you head out of your ass and you'll see that the partisan fighting is just a ploy to cover the unconstitutional bills that they keep fucking passing. Grow up and co-exist for fucks sake.

Some idiot talking head on Fox actually called Warren Buffet a socialist. If there was ever a need for the phrase "I don't think that word means what you think it means" that was surely it.
The problem is capital gains taxes. The truly rich don't earn paychecks. they take dividends from their investments, or stock options from their boards. Raising income taxes isn't going to hurt them. Thats why Warren Buffet is taxed at a lower rate then his secretary. It's not hyperbole, it's actually true. He is being taxed at 15% on the majority of his income. Any of you all being taxed at 15%? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

I would really like to have seen the No-Fly list. My older brother has been "randomly selected" for several flights in a row and I strongly suspect it is a name association with someone else. But our democratic republic uses "secret lists" now to persecute people. What can you do?

I would have liked to seen the list too.

Is there a reason he destroyed it?/. description has no details, and the article simply says "Domscheit-Berg has "in the last days shredded [the files] to ensure that the sources are not compromised," said Domscheit-Berg."

I don't understand, he couldn't save the lists without the sources? Why not just put them up on torrents without the sources on there? At least then *someone* would see them. Now they're gone. What a waste.

This is just the latest in an epic series of back-and-forths between DDB/OpenLeaks and Julian Assange/Wikileaks that has been going on for a year or so, particularly in the German scene/press. The first order of business seems to be: Don't believe everything you read, there has been a lot of misinformation spread by both sides, by other people who are involved and, worse yet, speculation by those that are not. Despite the fact that DDB looks like the bad guy, and I'm virtually certain he will be absolutely crucified here on Slashdot, DDB might just be a tragic figure and it's likely that there are no really good guys involved; Wikileaks and OpenLeaks were caught in a crossfire of Egos.

DDB left/was fired from Wikileaks because he felt the organisation was in some way corrupted/they felt he was a corrupted. Other people left along with him, people that were apparently important to the basic functionality of Wikileaks. DDB subsequently wrote about about Wikileaks and started to talk about an alternative leak sites, OpenLeaks. The book contains fairly serious allegations against Wikileaks and Julian Assange.

Purportedly, DDB (or possibly: one of the other people leaving WL) took those files because he did not think they were safe at Wikileaks. Note that the files do not contain any information on the identity of the leakers, Wikileaks simply does not store or even collect this information. They wre removed, not copied, and apparently Wikileaks did not have an extra copy (or the extra copies were all taken or destroyed). They were, of course, encrypted and he (or his allies) may or may not have access to some or all of them. Sidenote: At least one of the datasets he may have destroyed now (60k emails of a German neo-nazi party) made their way to the German media in some way, months ago. That may have been a coincidence, however, the newspaper involved is now a "media partner" of OpenLeaks. End of sidenote.DDB says he never had any intention of looking at or publishing the stolen data himself, and that he intended to return the files to WL, once WL has shown itself to be trustworthy (whatever that means). He also once intended to hand over the files to a trusted third party, people from Germany's Chaos Computer Club. He never followed through with this promise. He was recently thrown out of the CCC, an extraordinary measure, due to this but mostly other events related to a sorta-kinda security audit of OpenLeaks (this alone would require several paragraphs of explanation).

Anyway, DDB had this very sensitive data, which he didn't want to give to WL, and pretty much no one else either. He also had the encryption keys. I think initially he talked about just deleting the encryption keys in order to prove that he has no intention of using the leaks himself. But if you don't trust him, why would you believe he deleted his keys? And now he apparently figured the only course of action left was to "simply" delete the files themselves. I don't quite understand that final bit, either.

I have tried to summarize a very complex situation full of half-truths and unproven allegations to the best of my ability. Note that I have absolutely zero inside information, I know no one involved, this is all public information (though fairly inaccessible to many Slashdot users due to the language barrier).

It's sometimes okay to kill cops and you already named the case. When the cops are murdering people, or even you, you have the right to defend yourself and others with lethal force.

Cops are no different than any other people. I'll say it again. Cops are no different than any other people. Bad people who desire power go to where the power is, and cops have power. Cops are also just as likely, independent of this, to be bad as any other ordinary human being.

Certainly though, if a cop is lawfully arresting you, and has his gun drawn, you shouldn't pull yours out and open fire. That's not self-defense. Self-defense is protecting your life, not your ability to evade capture from arrest.

Of course, if somebody is actively shooting at you unprovoked, defend yourself by whatever means and you'll be ethical and moral. I don't think somebody's employment status matters in that case, and in that moment, can you even know with certainty that the person shooting at you is

What if the cop is "lawfully" arresting you? What if the law insists that you sit quietly and watch your child die rather than grabbing the life saving medication from the pharmacy? What if the cop is violating your 4th amendment rights with the full support of his CO, the DA, and their pet judge?

That's not to say there will be no consequences nor even that the courts would in any way acknowledge any of that as a mitigating circumstance, but it is a different ethical/moral situation.

Certainly though, if a cop is lawfully arresting you, and has his gun drawn, you shouldn't pull yours out and open fire. That's not self-defense.

Not necessarily true.

What if the current law says that you need to be hauled away to a concentration camp and murdered, and the cop is "just doing his job" in arresting you and sticking you on the train bound for the concentration camp?

In this case, you're entirely justified in shooting the cop, whether he's arresting you, or anyone else. In fact, you're not just justified, but you're doing the right and moral thing by executing him. He deserves to die for upholding such an evil law.

Personally, I think punishments for police and other government officials should be much, much, much harsher than for regular people. If you can't even trust your own government, then your society is failing, so strong protections should be put into place to protect the people from government abuses.

I don't understand... what is the difference between a "cop" and any other person? When is it ok to kill a human being? When is it ok to kill a dog? When is it ok to kill a rat? When is it ok to kill a spider? When is it ok to kill an ant?

I would really like to have seen the No-Fly list. My older brother has been "randomly selected" for several flights in a row and I strongly suspect it is a name association with someone else. But our democratic republic uses "secret lists" now to persecute people. What can you do?

If they had published the list, there would've been the problem that everybody has access to it. I imagine that if anybody could read the no-fly list, alot of employers might deny jobs to people on it.

Actually, they're not using 'secret' lists anymore. They're just going after people because they have been granted the authority to do so. I live about 100 miles from a US border (within the 200 mile from any border that the DHS has been granted full authority) and even though it was promised to only be used for external threats, recently the US Border Patrol in conjunction with local police recently used heat seeking drones to find pot plantations in the area and made arrests.

even though it was promised to only be used for external threats, recently the US Border Patrol in conjunction with local police recently used heat seeking drones to find pot plantations in the area and made arrests.

A citation would be nice. That is the kind of thing that ought to be widely documented to demonstrate exactly how this "security" feature creeps beyond the official justification.

I'm wondering if you live up here in Washington State, near me, where DSH is in full force on the Olympic Peninsula - many miles from any boarder crossing - setting up road-blocks where citizen or not, you better show them your "papers" unless you want to be inconvenienced for a few hours... They say they are there to protect us from "terrorists" but in fact they spend most of their time harassing US citizens and rounding up undocumented (illegal) farm workers. It's the roadblocks and the demand to see my papers that tick me off...

Actually, they're not using 'secret' lists anymore. They're just going after people because they have been granted the authority to do so. I live about 100 miles from a US border (within the 200 mile from any border that the DHS has been granted full authority) and even though it was promised to only be used for external threats, recently the US Border Patrol in conjunction with local police recently used heat seeking drones to find pot plantations in the area and made arrests.

Citation needed, especially because the Supreme Court put the kibosh on those searches almost a decade ago in Kyllo v. United States [wikipedia.org]. I know plenty of lawyers that would easily take such a case pro-bono because it's an easy win and a nice chunk of attorney's fees too.

as it turns out, if you are a single male flying one way, you pretty much ALWAYS get 'randomly' selected for extra screening. regardless of ethnic origins. whenever I fly on a 1 way ticket, i get 'randomly' selected.

If what DDB claims are true, he also destroyed five gigabytes of internal documents from the Bank of America. Seriously, how can anyone trust OpenLeaks when one of his founder completely disregarded the wishes of the whistle-blowers to expose what they perceived as wrong, immoral, and/or of public interest? His excuse that he wanted to "protect the sources" is over-the-top ridiculous given that the track record of Wikileaks is impeccable regarding source protection (alleged cablegate leaker outed himself as per alleged chat transcript.)

I was really looking forward to have Bank of America being exposed, especially after reading this piece [rollingstone.com].

Wikileaks does not record any source-identifying information and there are a number of mechanisms in place to protect even the most sensitive submitted documents from being sourced. We do not keep any logs. We can not comply with requests for information on sources because we simply do not have the information to begin with.

This has always been like this. The clean track record of Wikileaks, many years, thousands of leaks, supports the above. For whatever reason, DDB is pushing the Pentagon-friendly view that Wikileaks is a threat to leakers.

The essential point is that Daniel Domscheit-Berg does not trust that Wikileaks can guarantee the safety of the documents. He agree to return them as soon as it is safe, however it does not seem to be like that.

There are more weird things going on like a long continued throwing of mud onto openleaks/daniel by julian/wikileaks

i am not sure who is right, but this could be covered more deeply by somebody who submits it to his journal

If you have been following DDB and Wikileaks since last year, the mud was actually flowing from DDB toward Wikileaks/Assange, not the other way around. DDB went so far as to write a book about his time at Wikileaks, generously throwing mud at Assange in the process. There was such retarded stuff in there that it made DDB look silly, obviously he was holding a grudge. In the few instances where Wikileaks referred to DDB was to say he had been fired at some point in the past, period. No mud-slinging. This wee

If you want to kill something off, you don't fight it. You appear to support the cause, but you divert resources from legitimate organizations to your own. Then you f*ck up the job, thereby protecting your actual sponsors.

Which organizations' documents were destroyed? And were they completely destroyed? Or does Domscheit-Berg still have a list of the names of the informants that can be used to encourage future good behavior?

so much for transparency, even if these allegations turn out to be false as the "tiff/bad blood" between him and wikileaks is not as "transparent" as they advocate their operation to aspire to on their website.

either way, it's interesting to see where this will lead...especially on a slow news day.

There are two things an architect of a whistleblowing platform must never do: revealing the identity of informants and accepting submissions without publishing them. I despise Domscheit-Berg for keeping WikiLeaks from publishing that data. Who knows what risks were taken to get this information on that hard disk.

He might just as well have given or sold them to the CIA and claimed to have destroyed them to cover it up, or he may have lied about it so he can use those leaks to get his own platform off the ground, pretending they were fresh submissions to OpenLeaks (would any of the whistleblowers complain? surely not). What a shame about the idea of such a platform, being dismantled by big egos...

Rather than just raging against DDB, maybe his side of the story should be heard as well.

It goes somewhat like this:Once upon a time, there was a big fallout between Julian Assange and Daniel Domscheidt-Berg, and Julian kicked Daniel out.Daniel took his personal hardware with him, which happened to contain this hard-drive full of leaked documents.

A couple of other wikileaks staff sided with Daniel and also left. This included the so called Architect, who took down wikileaks submission-site for the following reasons:- he built it- he knew it was insecure- once he was gone, there was no-one left to fix it

Given that Julian accused Daniel of stealing these documents in order to use them for his new site OpenLeaks, Daniel didn't wan't to publish them himself.There have been attempts to give these data back to wikileaks, but these failed. Daniel insisted that after the loss of much of its technical staff, wikileaks had to prove that is was still able to protect the sources' identities. The CCC tried to mediate the exchange. Whatever happened here was not made public, so one can only guess what kind of mess it was.

Well, lets say you have collected info from your employer about their wrongdoings or shady actions. (Just a random example.) Also lets assume you would like to not be thrown in jail for making it public.

So you obtain the information from your employers computer system, you smuggle it out on a CD or USB stick and you pass it on to Wikileaks. The next step is to get rid of any evidence which might connect you to the event. Erase the USB stick and drop it into a river, delete any notes, uninstall whatever to

Right. Because so much of this would really protect informants. Like the no-fly list? Unless they randomly included a name in the middle that would show that it was a certain person's copy of the no-fly list how would that harm any informant? And if there was a random name surely multiple copies of the list could be found and you can combine the two and leave out whatever names aren't found on both of the copies.

Why this person is still able to freely roam the streets without fear. someone betrays people, like this, and still is able to live a normal life. noone stops them on their way home and holds them accountable.

What are you waiting for? Go beat him up, since that's your notion of accountability. Or is it? What did you mean by that? Should he be killed? Should he be photographed, 'shopped, and circulated as head transplant donkey porn?

currently, there are no repercussions for being a public enemy and harming millions.

To whom are you referring? I consider people who treacherously steal hundreds of thousands of sensitive documents, and those who help them do so while also making those documents available to the regimes in Iran and North Korea to be, indeed, public enemies. Certainly that betrays the trust of millions of people, and harms many, both directly and indirectly. Certainly being held in jail while facing trial for doing so counts as repercussion, wouldn't you say?

Or are you complaining that a person who deletes a bunch of stolen documents is the one who is the public enemy? Or is that person only a public enemy if the deleted documents are unrelated to people with whom you agree on one matter or another?

There are all sorts of repercussions for not meeting society's expectations. Everything from losing your publicly elected or appointed office to being killed by SEALs in your not-very-secret Pakistani compound or going to jail for running an investment Ponzi scheme.

Wikileaks released documents from China and North Korea as well, They've never had an unbalanced animus against the US; it's just the US media and government are loudest about complaints (and understand the Streisand effect the least.)